Your Stories

I turn 35 later this year. I think I’ve ticked a fair few of the stereotypical boxes – husband, career, mortgage. No children yet but we’re working on it. In a lot of ways, my life has gone to (a very happy) plan.

Through a lack of intervention, I have moved from one eating disorder to another over the last 11 years. This is why it is imperative to seek help for yourself, or for someone you care about, because it isn't going to end on its own.

I have only ever been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and even within that, was someone who was able to access care after only around a year of struggling, which I know, sadly, is not the case for so many people.

Within four weeks of seeing my GP I was sitting in front of two eating disorder nurse specialists, who confirmed a diagnosis of anorexia. I was offered a weekly outpatient appointment for six weeks.

I remember when I was younger asking my mum what an ‘eating disorder’ was in the car. I was about eight years old and had heard it mentioned on the radio. She said that ‘people who can't eat’ have them. I thought nothing of it after that.

You lied to me; you twisted and warped my reality. Isolating me. Tormenting me. You told me that all I needed was to lose a few more pounds. But you were never happy. You made me hate myself.

There I was, sitting in front of the GP, age going on 33, a decade of anorexia behind me. Was I going to tell the whole story? 'I’ve had a chest infection for six weeks and I’m scared I’m losing my hearing. Pause. Deep breath. “The real reason I’m so ill is anorexia. I’ve got anorexia.'

Zero is the number I am driven to reach by the 'friend' in my mind. I am to eat zero of this and that, and I am to take up zero space.

I want to start this post by taking you back two years. It’s the summer of 2015 and I’m about to start my first year of sixth form. I can’t say I was particularly excited by the prospect, as like many decisions I have made in my life it wasn’t actually something I really wanted to do.

For many years, I kept my struggles with eating disorders as private as I could. Only a couple of close friends knew about my struggles with anorexia and bulimia throughout my late teens and early twenties.

I have heard this sentence so many times over the years: 'You’re not skinny enough to have an eating disorder.' But excuse me, who are you to say my mental state is determined by the number on the scale? Who are you to question whether or not I'm struggling?

If there’s such a thing as a typical anorexic patient, then I’m not that person. I’m a man with an illness broadly estimated to be 80-90% female.